


the lightning strike

by crazyache



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 22:42:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyache/pseuds/crazyache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the night Azula attacks their refuge in the Western Air Temple, Zuko dreams of Katara dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the lightning strike

_What if this storm ends?_

_And I don't see you_

_As you are now, ever again_

On the night Azula attacks their refuge in the Western Air Temple, Zuko dreams of Katara dying.

He’s not sure whyhe wakes up startled with his heart threatening to jump from the prison of his ribcage bones, especially since this particular waterbender had just screamed at him just a few hours ago and, in fact, most likely, hates him. His hands should not be trembling. He should not feel this inexplicably guilty—for Ba Sing Se, for her mother _, for not saving her in time._

In his dream, the temple’s falling rocks crush her.

But you did save her, he tells himself. He _did._ Zuko sits up, rubbing his good eye while taking a breath. He feels like melted wax, the aftermath of a candle’s descent to flames, cold. Then, he remembers his discussion with Sokka, the one he had clasped his fist around so gently as if it were a piece of soul (it really had been). No—he realizes suddenly—he still needs to save her from being crushed by a force even more damning than falling rocks.

Zuko leaves his tent dead in the night to go sit outside of Katara’s until she wakes.

He knows what to do now.

_What if this storm ends?_

_And leaves us nothing, except a memory_

_A distant echo_

No more dreams haunt Zuko, most likely due to the lack of sleep on air bison’s back—at least not until he and Katara return from their trip to the Southern Raiders. That night, it’s not the same dream, or rather it somewhat is, for Katara is _still dead_ at the end and he has failed her yet again.

They were in the Southern Water Tribe. For the strangest reason, he remembers himself as a child. An undamaged, untouched and unscarred version of him. The unfamiliar snow crunched beneath his feet. It unsettled him, he recalled. That was when the soot began to fall.

And there is Katara in the distance. She turns to look at him, lips just about to crease into a smile, eyes bluer than all the covering skies and oceans. He’s about to smile back and begin moving toward her direction, but her smile never forms and is cracked like the ice beneath her feet.

Her body plummets down the hole in the ice; by the time he reaches her, he is sobbing and the hole is gone. _Katara!_ Zuko is screaming, but suddenly all the little blue tents have disappeared and nothing but the tundra is there to rip the tears across his face and toss her name into the artic winds. It doesn’t make sense that the crack in the ice is already gone, or why a master waterbender cannot save herself. _Why aren’t you bending!?_ He frantically searches the ice, kicking the snow and falling to his knees. When he hears the pounding of fists against the thickness of ice beneath him, he cries her name again. _Katara!_ A part of his mind wants it to be enough—for the syllables of her name to cut the winter glass, but it doesn’t break. Not when he slams his little fists against them, not when he screams at the blue-faced waterbender drowning and begging for air, not at the muffled sound of his name, and not even when the fists stop and there is silence. 

No, this is a dream. _Wake up wake up fucking wake up!_ Shooting upright and shivering, he could swear his clothes are stained with snow, not sweat. Why is this happening? Why is this happening again? Zuko asks under his shaken breath, throwing his blanket to the side and rushing out.

He finds himself running to Katara’s tent, once again. Katara, the girl who once hated him. The girl he helped track a murderer for. The girl who held a man’s life in her fingertips and rain’s razor edge. The girl who had forgiven _him (_ perhaps before he had even forgiven himself) _._ The girl…who had hugged him the night before. 

When he rips open the flap to her tent, she’s sleeping.

Zuko smiles.

 

_I want pinned down_

_I want unsettled_

_Rattle cage after cage_

_Until my blood boils_

 

The last of his reoccurring dreams is the night before Sozin’s Comet and the battle that would redefine history. His father has always infiltrated his dreams, since long before his banishment, and he expects to face him tonight in his sleep, but is almost afraid of it happening. Much to his surprise, he doesn’t make a visit. Instead, it’s _her_ again. It hasn’t happened for a while now—he hasn’t had to lose her again for weeks.

This time, he finds himself running. At first, it is a labyrinth of hallways and doors, blacks walls with crimson and gold decorations lined against the endless path. Why is he running? Why is he trying to open all the doors, and why are they all locked? He doesn’t know. Zuko wildly turns a corner, leaning against the wall as he chooses to steer left; it’s getting harder to breathe.

“There’s nothing you can do to stop it,” a voice drones behind him.

Zuko spins around, squinting at the dark figure leaning against the far wall. Before he recognizes the voice, he notices the large Fire Nation flag behind it. The portraits of ancestry hung like skeletons. He’s in the royal palace—either his home or hell, he isn’t sure. He remembers the voice, snapping his eyes back into place. “Absolutely nothing, Zuko.”

Mai.

She spins a knife easily between her fingers, her bangs curtaining her eyes. When he opens his mouth, only a choked emptiness comes out, his hands reaching for his throat as if he could squeeze the questions out. “Save your breath,” she mutters, inspecting the knife between two fingers before slicing her arm through the air. It lands on a door to his right. Zuko looks over and understands. He wants to thank her, but when he turns his gaze back, she is gone. 

There is fire breathing underneath the door. He smells the smoke first; even for a firebender, the dragon-bit, heavy presence of smoke in any language is detrimental. His voice burns going up his blackened throat, striking him like lightning in the chest at the relapse of why he was here— _Katara—_ but the sound escapes him like smoke. 

Kicking down the door in one movement, Zuko furiously fights forward against the onslaught of flames. There is nothing but orange and heat in his vision, the beams crackling on the brink of collapse, and he coughs as he presses forward. “Zuko!” and it is so distinguishable through the moans of fire and destruction, that he is able to bend the element into a clear path straight to her call.

But when he arrives, the power of the fire is ravenous and terrible. It fights him back. Everything, everything in this goddamn dream becomes fire, even the floor at his feet and the walls and the air and his screams and _her._

“Zuko? Zuko—”

A gentle hand is rubbing his back when he jolts awake on Appa’s furry back, his hands curling into fists ready to attack. “It’s me, calm down,” he hears Katara whisper, who didn’t even flinch when his balled hands landed an inch away from her hair. Everything is still blurred, the remnants of burning orange still fluttering into his eyes. “You were shouting…I think you were having a nightmare,” Katara’s concerned lips tighten as she tried to nudge him back down to his back.

“I…I’m fine now.” Zuko blinks, staring at her. “Thanks.”

She smiles down at him, a hand grazing his scar. “We’re going to be okay tomorrow. I promise.”

He can’t bring himself to smile back, but he tucks a strand of wild brown hair behind her ear to both of their surprises and quickly flips his back to her, praying, praying, praying to Agni she is right.

 

_Painted in flames, all peeling thunder_

_Be the lightning in me_

_That strikes relentless_

 

There is a still a trace of a comet-ripped sky when he awakens to a piercing pain in his chest. The red wound in the night clouds outside matches the spot right above his heart. Zuko cannot remember how he ended up in this comfortable bed meant for, well, a lord, or how these bandages were wrapped, but he assumes this means he is safe now.

He certainly cannot remember how this waterbender ended up sprawled on the bed next to him.

Correction, _snoring_ waterbender.

Zuko groans the moment he lifts his arm to reach towards her, a grimace replacing the relief on his face. It is overwhelming to finally disprove all of his dreams, but he does it, with one deep exhale. He even grants himself the pleasure of touching her splayed out knotty hair with the edges of his fingers. Except, he didn’t imagine this would be enough to awaken the beast—

“You _stupid, stupid_ firebender!”Katara’s fist is wrapped around his wrist, angrily shaking his arm with a slightly too forceful and rapid movement, he grunts in pain again at each pound of emphasis she places on _stupid._

Pain is replaced with warmth and hair in his mouth. She dives into him, slamming into his chest—another grunt and grimace—and wraps her arms around his neck, muttering some more, “Why did you do that? Why did you do that…for me?” Her words are so fragile, he feels them spill down his cheeks, so quiet, he hears her breath dangle.

And what can he really tell her? _I dreamt of you._ That moment, when the lightning roared, was more terrifying than all the nights before. He couldn’t lose her, _again._ He doesn’t know how to say it; he thought he had always needed to rescue her, but it had been her that did the real saving. 

“In that moment, I realized how much I—I— _we_ needed you,” he finally answers. _I need you._

Her demeanor collapses, only for a fragment of a moment, for an instant, but he knows it isn’t what she wanted (he didn’t either). She sinks next to him, tucking her head carefully next to his chest, one arm below his scar. “We need you, too, Zuko. More than you will ever know.” He leans his head against the top of hers, pretending to not notice her tears soaking his bandages.

That night, he dreams of Katara again. This may be the worst of his nightmares yet, for on this night he sees her in the arms of a tattooed Avatar, happier than he has ever seen her. Zuko would grab lightning with his bare hands and naked heart, would challenge the spirits of death, but never would he dare hurt the air monk that granted him a new destiny. He doesn’t deserve more than this, he tells himself. 

Zuko wakes up on the morning of his coronation alone.

He will always dream of her.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics belong to the song "The Lightning Strike" by Snow Patrol.


End file.
